Adventures at Sea

We left Gulf Harbor, happy to have our watermaker repaired, since there has been little rain in New Zealand over the last month. Next stop: a rendezvous with Colin's college friend, Marian, and company. After a delightful evening dinner at sister Janine's house, we met up on the boat the next day. The sun was out and everyone enjoyed swimming, paddleboarding and just hanging out on the boat. Janine went home for some well deserved peace and quiet, but the rest of the group spent the night on TabbyCat. Gin & Tonics were consumed late into the wee hours and everyone got a good night's sleep, especially Charlie. (Click here for more photos)

We're finally afloat after a long hiatus. Lots of land travel (7 countries in 7 months) and much work in the yard has intervened between our last trip out on TabbyCat and now. We're happy to report that we have all new electronics, including a chartplotter, AIS, depthsounder, wind instruments and Radar, which took longer than expected, since we had to replace the long cable that runs down the mast. As usual, we're a bit behind our "schedule". While waiting for parts to arrive, we enjoyed watching junks sailing the river, and the riggers working on a tall ship across the way.
We spent the weekend in "the Nook" a lovely little anchorage at the mouth of the Whangarei River, getting used to cruising again and enjoying the lovely NZ scenery. Rolling hills, horses & cows grazing on the hills, bright sunshine glinting off the aquamarine water - it makes all that hard work scaping the bottom and painting all worth it. If the weather holds, we'll be off to Great Barrier Island tomorrow for our first major sail of 2019 click here for a few more photos of Whangarei

We had a delightful visit to Scotland's Isle of Harris with friends Mike & Jill. The weather swung back and forth between "atmospheric" to "lovely" and we managed to get in quite a a bit of bog trotting and beach walks, not to mention a visit to the Harris tweed shop and the local distillery. The scenery was so dramatic - we were taking 100 photographs a day - making it difficult to decide which photo to use as the header for this blog. If you'd like to see more amazing Scotland photos, click here....

Yes, we really did stop for a day in Hawaii enroute to Scotland! One of the best Ukelele stores in the world is at the north end of Oahu, so we rented a car for the day and enjoyed a scenic drive to the north end of the island. We met Cory of "Hawaii Music Supply" aka "the Ukelele Site" who guided Colin through his choice of instrument, gave him a few pointers, and amazed us both with his musical talent. Thanks Cory!

We spent traveled to Whanganui for Easter. Much chocolate was consumed in the evenings, and good times were had on the black sand beaches with Hadley and family. Rick, thanks for getting the hot tub heated up, that was a real treat! Boz - thanks for being such a great host , cooking and arranging for our entertainment each day. We're looking forward to returning the favor in a country of your choice!
click here to see more photos from our trip...

We were pleased to have Marty & Gabby join us for a week aboard TabbyCat. Since we're currently based in Whangarei, we decided to show them the lovely gardens in the old rock quarry. There are some truly amazing and exotic plants to be seen! We spent the better part of the afternoon there, and didn't even walk all the trails.


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